Issue #203 - Simulations, Patterns, VR and more

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Lots of interesting and varied content this week. Enjoy!

Portal Effect with Stencil Decals (BIRP & URP) - In this post I'll show you how to set up a portal effect using decals.
Minions Art

The "Weak Event" Pattern in C# - Events in C# are a powerful mechanism for decoupling components and enabling a publisher/subscriber model. However, they have a significant drawback: the publisher holds a strong reference to the subscriber, and this can cause memory leaks. This article describes a pattern for implementing weak events in C#.
steven-giesel.com

Walk Animation In Blender - Wanna learn this super quick 3 frame walk animation? Got you covered
Quaternius @quaternius

Circular menus in the Unity Editor - Adding a circular menu to the Unity Editor.
ameye.dev

How to sort sprites by Y axis in Unity 2D - In 2D games you usually want to create an illusion of 3D, and there is no better way than to modify the sorting order of your sprites:
sunnyvalleystudio.com

Super-charging Object Selection & Searching in Unity - As many of us do, I have a large Unity project with many different packages imported along with their assets, textures and materials. As a result, I always have difficulty finding the asset I need using the basic Object Selector, as it typically shows a cluttered list of assets and materials in the project, many unrelated to what I’m looking for.
Juris

Building Quest 2 VR Projects With Unity - This tutorial will explain how to build a Unity VR project to the Quest 2. At the end of this tutorial you will have a simple template project with a scene that has the Head and Controller tracking setup built to your Quest device. You can then use this project as a starting point for all your Quest VR Projects!
timcoster.com

Get Random Object with Probability – C# Script - I used this method to create a custom brush for painting random tiles with Unity Tilemaps.
stuartspixelgames.com

Demystifying game persistence with serialization - I'm not going to act like I developed a persistence engine for a AAA game like Skyrim, but I do want to shed some light on how to accomplish this in a smaller scope- something that most of us indie gamedevs are suited to tackle. In this article I will go over how to utilize JSON serialization and clean interfaces to create an easy, and dynamic save & load system in your game to easily persist any game state.
michael bitzos

Videos

You Have No Idea How Hard It Is To Run a Sweatshop - Can games teach us about our ourselves? Can a video game be a statement about the world? Do we design games intentionally or accidentally? This GDC 2023 talk addresses these questions and much more—including Voros McCracken, Ottoman fratricide, fancy hats, Le Corbusier, nuclear holocaust, Mt. Rushmore, and the 1994 Caribbean Cup. Come find out how hard it is to run a sweatshop. Stay for a hopeful and skeptical look at how to make games that say what we want them to s …
GDC

I Tried Simulating The Entire Ocean - Sea of Thieves boasts some very beautiful water, perhaps the best looking water in gaming history! But, how does it work? Did they even do it first? Can I do better with current hardware? Who knows! Topics covered include: Fourier series, fourier transform, frequency and time domain, oceanographic spectra, discrete fourier transform, fast fourier transform, approximate subsurface scattering, simulating foam, leveraging multiple frequency bands
Acerola

How To Make a VR Multiplayer Game - Unity Netcode - In this video we're going to see how we can build our own VR multiplayer game with the unity netcode for game object !
Valem Tutorials

C# Interfaces for Unity | Quick GameDev Guides - Hey ! this is a quick straightforward guide about how to use interfaces in your C# code. They're a great tool to have and understand.
Willy Dev

How to Create 3D Menu with Unity: A step-by-step tutorial - In this tutorial, I'll show how to create a quick and easy menu with interactive buttons and animated icons. This can definitely be built upon with additional styling.
Jon Bednez

The Art of Lighting - 80 Level Podcast - Jasmine Katatikarn, 3D Lighting Artist and CEO of the Academy of Animated Art joined 80 Level. Jasmine talks about learning lighting art, technologies, software, and storytelling through light in movies & games. She delves into the job opportunities for artists: what companies are looking for, and how to overcome the stigmatization of art careers among older generations. We also discuss the difference between animation and VFX and the dynamic interplay between human creativity and AI
80lv

Assets

Learn Unity Game Development Bundle 2023 - Level up your Unity skills.

Learn to create games with Unity with these online courses from GameDev.tv—including multiple courses being made available for the first time exclusively through Humble Bundle! This comprehensive curriculum covers core skills and advanced concepts for the powerful and popular development platform, and includes assets to help create your game projects. Find out how to make a 2D RPG combat system, VR experience, or turn-based strategy game. Get trained up on visual scripting, multiplayer, network coding, and more.

Level up your Unity game dev skills, and help support SpecialEffect with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

EasyButtons - Add buttons to your inspector in Unity super easily with this simple attribute
madsbangh Open Source

blender-to-unity-fbx-exporter - This free add-on allows exporting FBX files from Blender in one click with the appropriate options so they export correctly in Unity's coordinate system.
EdyJ Open Source

The Enchanted Land Fantasy Music Pack - Hey Guys, I'm Olivér Kovács, a media composer. I've decided to make this fantasy music pack free. (I also remastered the entire pack.) I hope it will fit your game very well!
olivercomposer.itch.io

Unity-AltSourceGenerator - Alternative Source Generator is built on the Unity native functions.
As you already know, Roslyn's source generator is too sophisticated. This framework provides more simple, ease of use and good enough functions for source code generation.
sator-imaging Open Source

UnityEditorMemo - You can post any texts on UnityEditor. You can post questions you had during your game dev or take notes about your tasks... This asset can be used in various ways.
charcolle Open Source

Medicine - Medicine is a collection of attributes that give you a code-driven, performance-oriented way to automatically hook up references between your components. Additionally, it comes with a toolbox of optimized versions of many standard component-related operations.
apkd Open Source

transvoxel-unity - transvoxel-unity is a procedural voxel terrain generator for Unity using the Job System and Burst.
bbQsauce5 Open Source

Hey-Area-Object-Spawner - Spawn Random Objects Inside The Complex Areas! (in unity)
Hey Area Object Spawner is a user-friendly level design tool that enables you to generate random objects within a complex area on a terrain. The spawning hierarchy system allows for the efficient creation of complex area spawning systems (defined as polygons from points), saving you time in level design!
JahnStar Open Source

My-Hierarchy - Upgraded Hierarchy Window
INFGameDev Open Source

quill-framework - Quill Framework is a feature-rich classic Sonic-inspired 2D framework for the Unity Engine. This framework originally started off as a fun sandbox project for me to learn how to program in C#. Like any sandbox-type project, I didn't have an end goal in mind, but I think where it is right now is the perfect starting point for other people.
DamiTheHuman Open Source

Unity-SpriteAssist - Unity-SpriteAssist is an Unity extension that assist Sprite's mesh creation more conveniently.
sr4dev Open Source

UnityGaussianSplatting - Toy Gaussian Splatting visualization in Unity
aras-p Open Source

Calypso - Calypso is a unity package for creating simulation-driven visual novels. It enhances visual novels' prototypical branching narrative structure by simulating characters' lives outside their conversations with the player and their relationships with other characters. We provide a query language extension for dialog scripting that allows developers to create flexible conversation scripts that adjust to the current cast of characters. This project aims to assist visual novel developers in creating more dynamic and unique stories than can be accomplished solely using conventional branching narrative tools such as Twine.
ShiJbey Open Source

Unity-Neural-Network - This is a C# implementation of a simple feedforward neural network. This neural network can be used to solve any problems where an input vector of values from 0-1 results in an output vector of values from 0-1.
Blueteak Open Source

AnimatableVolumeComponent - Animatable Volume Component provides an interface for animating the URP/HDRP PostProcessing Volumes. Use this component to give your game more interactive and dynamic look.
cji3bp62000 Open Source

EditarrrPublic - A 2d platformer with level editor and easy level sharing tools to improve creative level design skills by getting quick feedback from playtesters and speedrunning leaderboards to increase replayability.
LPGameDevs Open Source

SmartReference - Smart Reference is a Unity plugin that allows you to lazy load references to other objects in ScriptableObject and MonoBehaviour. You may be familiar to use ScriptableObject store data, but when you reference other objects, they will be treated as dependencies and will be loaded when the ScriptableObject is loaded. This could be slow if you have a lot of references. For details, see this article. Smart Reference allows you to load references only when you need them at runtime with same workflow in editor.
Brian-Jiang Open Source

KayKit : Space Base Bits - This pack has a bunch of game assets for creating modular space bases, or launch your interplanetary mining colony! Awesome to make a simulation, resource-management, or base survival game with!
kaylousberg.itch.io

Sci-Fi Sale: 50% Off - Boldly go to the next level. Save 50% on futuristic assets to help you create at warp speed. Unity Asset Store Sale!
Unity Affiliate

50% off A-ravlik - Publisher Sale - Get 50% off A-ravlik assets. A-ravlik creates 2D assets for game projects. With 10 years of experience as a 2D artist, the founder of A-ravlik has created a small but capable team of artists. PLUS, get Characters Cards pack 01 for FREE with code ARAVLIK
Unity Affiliate

Fantasy And Sci-Fi Essentials For Unity Bundle - Amazing sci-fi & fantasy assets for Unity.
Propel your Unity game project to new heights of visual fidelity with this massive sci-fi and fantasy asset bundle, crafted by some of the dev scene’s most esteemed content creation studios! You’ll get all the building blocks needed to craft impressive and immersive game worlds, including a vast catalog of sci-fi and fantasy creatures, high-end animation sets for all manner of entities monstrous to mundane, stunning environment packs, and much more. As a bonus, you’ll also get a voucher for the Unity Asset Store good for 10% off your next purchase!
Pay what you want for this enormous asset bundle valued at over $2,500, and help support Alzheimer's Research UK with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Apress Game Coding 2023 Book Bundle - Learn the functions of fun. Level up the technical skills you need to create games and lead a successful career in development with this bundle of ebooks from Apress! Deepen your understanding of digital audio, get a handle on 3D graphics, and learn the fundamentals of crafting game mechanics. Familiarize yourself with popular tools and platforms like GameMaker and MonoGame. Build a foundation for a wide range of game programming and development disciplines, and help support Direct Relief with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Spotlight

ODR Hockey Heroes - ODR Hockey Heroes is an over-the-top arcade-style hockey video game with no rules, big hits filthy goals and crazy power-ups! Lace up your skates and face off against the Hockey Godz in this epic fantasy hockey adventure game.

[You can visit their website to learn more, wishlist it on Steam and follow them on Twitter]
TREEWOOD STUDIOS Inc.

You can subscribe to the free weekly newsletter on GameDevDigest.com

This post includes affiliate links; I may receive compensation if you purchase products or services from the different links provided in this article.